Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Adventist Risk Management

Hunter Pettis

Adventist Risk Management - Part 2: Pathfinder and Camp Safety

Dear Holy Father, thank you for waking us up this morning.

Thank you for all the many blessings you continue to bestow upon us.

I pray that you be with us as we go through this material, allow our minds to be open and acceptant of it, and as well as to go back and implement it so that we may further your mission for our church.

And I ask you to sing His most holy and precious name, amen.

For those who I haven't had the opportunity to formally introduce myself, my name is Hunter Pettis.

I am the account executive for Lake Union as well as Atlantic Union, but more specifically for this instance, Michigan Conference.

Today we're going to talk a little bit about Pathfinder Safety.

There are some, it's a little bit of a refresher for some things and there are also some other new elements to it especially regarding the fact that Oshkosh is on its way and on the horizon.

So there are some key elements that I'll touch on early in the presentation.

If you have any questions at any point, feel free to ask since we are a small group.

Okay, so let's go ahead and just dive right in.

So of course this is dealing primarily with, I'll kind of skim over the Adventist risk management, our ministry part, because ultimately Adventist risk management, we're here, our ministry is to support you in all of your efforts, and in that we try to kind of break that down into risk identification, control, and financing.

The financing aspect, obviously, is what we're most known for, and that's the insurance.

But when it comes to the control and identification and minimizing the risk, whether it's for child protection, transportation issues, or even just Pathfinders in general, making sure that you have the tools and resources to get that done.

So This session pretty much focuses on the moral protection obligations of the counselor to guard the well-being of each member of your Pathfinder Club.

It includes a review of physical safety issues, supervision policies, as well as any health concerns, transportation issues, which I think most of us, I see some repeat students from yesterday's class, so I think most of us understand or may have heard not to utilize 15 passenger vans.

So 15 passenger vans, on the easiest way to explain it pretty much is that we've had a lot of, a large amount of losses when it comes to 15 passenger vans.

And most, most often it, it tends to be the ones that we all envision when you say 15 passenger vans is the Ford model.

To give you a visual, you've been in a 15 passenger van before, correct?

Actually a 13, but close enough, I think.

I think more or less they're kind of designed about the same.

So the 15 passenger van, you get into a 15 passenger van, A lot of times the seats are, if you're riding in the back, they're all towards the left side of the vehicle or the driver's side of the vehicle.

That already creates an imbalance in terms of the weight distribution because the majority of people, yeah.

Usually when you're driving a 15 passenger van, in some cases there's more than actual 15 passengers, so it exceeds the capacity.

You also have an instance where people who are riding in the van, A lot of times those who are sitting in the back don't have a seatbelt on.

Another thing is that you also have a lot of times the roof of the vehicle is usually not reinforced.

So it's prone to roll over because of the unequal weight distribution.

So that ultimately creates poor wear, uneven wear in the tires.

And when it does, the fact that it's, doesn't have a reinforced ceiling, it rolls over.

You have a bunch of people in the back who don't have seat belts on so that's the easiest way to explain it ultimately it does boil down because I All 15 passenger vans aren't designed equally and some 15 passenger vans or 13 or 12 passenger vans are almost manufactured in the same manner that 15 passenger vans are.

And I'm what I mean by that is pretty much their dimensions.

So we've done some some further research and and I don't have it actually in this slide, I shared it yesterday.

It ends up being the wheelbase if it exceeds 135 inches.

And then the overall, I'm drawing a blank.

But, yes, the bumper to bumper length, if it exceeds, I think it was 224 inches.

So if it exceeds that so you so in some instances you may have a 12 passenger van that exceeds that 135 inches Exactly so those vans in some instances are not.

I've seen a 15 passenger van that doesn't have...

That has an aisle down the middle in other words.

I think those are kind of like what your Sprinter van or something like that I've seen I've seen some that are a little bit balanced right now the North American Division has updated its policy to Not use own lease rent 15 passenger vans in any of any kind and under any circumstances.

Alternative vehicles that you can use is minivan, SUV, a minibus and this almost sounds contradictory but 15 passenger vans if they have the dual rear wheels.

They have been known to be a little bit safer.

And they usually have a reinforced ceiling, so they have this turtle top is what it's called.

So they have that roofing that kind of shells up.

So those are also acceptable alternatives to your...

Your door wear, wreaths, and what do you call it?

Yeah, I've seen that all over Oshkosh, you know, being a pathfinder.

And again, it boils down to the fact that It's not worth losing a life.

You know, for me personally, it's gotten to the point where even if I see someone with a 15 passenger van that's not even a part of our church, It's like, hey, you know, do you know about 15 passenger vans and the things that they're prone to, the rollover, and how costly that could be?

You know, like I said, you usually have more than your fair share of individuals.

It exceeds capacity of the vehicle and You have a ton of people who end up losing their life in those instances.

So no 15 passenger vans But getting back to the slide, of course that was talking about transportation issues We'll also discuss abuse and prevention and intervention, as well as accident reporting and response.

So I'll try to touch on those, but again, if you have any questions while I'm going through this, please feel free to stop me.

So first things first, when you're going on a trip, communication is key.

Making sure that everybody understands what's going on, where are we going, how are we getting there, where are we stopping.

So As far as the staff is concerned, their first primary focus is knowing their assigned duties.

If you're on a bus, how many adults are in the front?

Do you have, and I'll touch on this a little bit more, but depending on the activity, you know, how many kids are assigned to 1 adult, you know?

Much like 15-past-year events, all kids are not created equal.

What's the condition of the ratio of kids to adults?

If you could bear with me just a moment, I will get to that.

Because it's heavily dependent upon the activity.

And then In some instances, it could be heavily dependent upon the child.

But I'll touch on that if you bear with me just a moment.

Adventist Risk Management - Part 3: Insurance 101

Thank you for a beautiful and amazing day allowing the sunshine to come out and warm up a little bit for us.

I pray now that as we spend some time talking about insurance that I'm able to convey the message adequately and that it is well received and I ask these things in your most holy and precious name, amen.

So good afternoon, I'm sure you already know by now but I will still introduce myself.

I'm the account executive for both the Lake Union as well as Atlantic Union, but more specifically for this class, Michigan Conference.

Today, as you know, we're going to be talking about insurance one-on-one.

I'll try to go through the basics, but of course, if you guys, since it's such a large class, if you have any questions, feel free to ask, feel free to stop me.

I prefer the smaller groups anyway, it allows for us to have that dialogue a little bit.

But as you know, at Venice Risk Management, we're headquartered in Silver Spring office.

We have offices in Brazil as well as London.

And our overall goal is to protect the ministry of the church.

And as best we do that, we try to provide the risk management solutions as well as insurance.

So basically we try to encourage that as a leader that you realize that we all have a duty to protect, whether we're a head elder, a pastor, Sabbath school leader, or just a member in the congregation, we do have some level of responsibility to protect, whether it is the property itself or those individuals around us.

So there are some elements that I'll talk about in terms of care, custody, and control when you have something that is left in your care and your custody and your control because ultimately we represent something that's much larger than ourselves.

So it's all about it always boils down to being good stewards.

So, so far those of you who had the privilege of joining me earlier in the week, we talked, we discussed a little bit about risk identification, which is pretty much analyzing the risk, understanding where the hazards lie.

You know, I shared a story earlier in the week where there was a individual who broke into a church And the church just so happened to have 1 of their fire exits blocked with storage.

And it turns out that the church ended up being held negligent for that person's death because of that exit being blocked.

And ultimately there was a payout to the family on their behalf.

And it's little things like that, recognizing that no matter what the situation, not having your exits blocked or at least having your exit signs illuminated, even having like here how we have on the door an emergency evacuation plan.

This building, I mean, it's a little bit more wide open.

So you know, hey, there's a door here, there's a door on the other side, there's a door down this hallway.

So you kind of know, worst case scenario, you can even probably, I don't know how wide open those windows open, but you may be able to crawl through there as well.

But it ultimately boils down to recognizing, not just coming to church, whether you're the safety officer, the held elder, but kind of paying attention to your surroundings.

So if you have a loose handrail, you have an outlet cover that's missing, that's just analyzing and being aware of the hazards that you might have.

And of course, having a way to prevent those and control those and minimize those and to avoid them.

But more importantly, what we're here to talk about today is how do we ensure it when we've done all we can.

We've come out with a risk management plan.

But just like how you were sharing with your church, sometimes accidents happen and we didn't think that it was gonna come.

We didn't realize that it was on its way, you know, sometimes it could be as simple as as we like to call it acts of God.

So, you know, you have a tornado, you have a blizzard, it ultimately largely affects your building.

So 1 thing that I really want to touch on a little bit is what the loss ratio looks like for the North American division as a whole.

Okay, these numbers may not mean anything to you right now, but I guarantee you in a second I'll explain exactly what they are.

So in the insurance industry there are, there is the insurance carrier and then there is reinsurance.

The easiest way to think of a reinsurance carrier is an insurance for the insurance company.

So when the insurance companies have paid out as much as they possibly can, there is an outside insurance carrier that, for lack of better words, has a larger sum of money, a capital, that will help offset some of the expenses that in this case, ARM would have to spend for losses.

So the North American Division as a whole, over the past few years, we've really been trying to set out and have risk management initiatives because for us as an organization, North American Division, ARM included, our loss ratio has been astronomical.

And so in 2016, what that loss ratio essentially looked like was 500% what is 500% equate to that means for every dollar that I give you John You have to pay me $5 Can you stay in business that long doing that?

So for every dollar that we paid collectively, ARM included, in premium, $6.50 our reinsurers had to pay to supplement our losses.

We do recognize again that some of these instances are inevitable.

You know, fires are very hard to control, virtually impossible to predict unless you have an arson on your hands.

Tornadoes, virtually impossible to just pick your building up and bury it underground so that the tornado doesn't hit it, and then re-erect it when the tornado's gone.

Those situations are very difficult to deal with.

But what I'd like to share with you is that the primary types of losses that attributed to these, believe it or not, have nothing to do with those fires or natural acts.

It actually falls under unqualified supervision is 1 of them.

I've never been rock climbing, but somehow I'm the instructor for everybody.

I'm not the greatest swimmer, but somehow I'm chaperoning for the kids who may have a higher chance of drowning than I do.

So just taking that time to have that conversation, making sure that everyone, or if it's not every single chaperone, that there is enough people present to be able to properly supervise it.

15 passenger vans, I know that's everybody's favorite.

Every time you hear 15 passenger vans, but it has been unfortunately and sadly to say it has been 1 of the greatest losses within our church.

As many times as we try to preach and ram it into the ground and bring out our heavy duty paddles and say, hey, don't do it.

Somehow, some way, even today, well, not literally today, but even now there are instances where I will go out to a conference and I still see 15 passenger vans.

I explained earlier and for the benefit of you I'll explain a little bit further in detail why 15 passenger vans are so deadly, essentially.

And I don't know, I'm not assuming that you don't know, but I'm just saying for the sake of the class, 15 passengers at a very basic level, you know, You have your 15 passenger vans, most of the time when you get in the 15 passenger van, the majority of the passengers in the back are towards the left side of the vehicle.

It already creates a bit of an imbalance.

A lot of times, for the 15 passenger van, you are above the max capacity load.

So you have supposedly 15 people in the vehicle but a lot of times it might be 17, 18, maybe even 20.

You know you have smaller kids you try to pile them all in there.

You have heavier people, whatever the case may be, it offsets the load.

Setting out 50% wind, sitting parking lot.

Well, and I'll touch on that just as I kind of go through and explain.

So yeah, so you have, as you mentioned, higher center of gravity, the weight distribution is very, a lot more likely to tip over.

Also, with 15 passenger vans, a lot of times, those passengers are sitting in the back, they're not wearing seat belts, just not.

And then there's not a reinforced ceiling structure.

So if your van has improperly wear in the tires, it's tipping over, you're talking about everybody who's in there is getting crushed.

Now North American Division has gone as far as to update their policy and say churches should not use rent lease, use 15 passenger vans under any circumstances.

However, in stating that, they say that alternatives are minivans, SUVs, minibuses, and then, which almost sounds like a contradictory statement, 15 passenger vans with the dual rear wheels.

So why even bother saying, well, you can still use this type of 15 passenger van as opposed to your traditional as we we typically remember is that the Ford 15 passenger van.

It hasn't been conclusive but it seems so that the dual rear wheels and the reinforced ceiling structure provides a little bit more stability.

Sprinter vans, I think, almost fall, not all of them, but a few fall in that classification.

Some sprinter vans even have that middle out as opposed to 1 side.

But overall, as we went through and did more research about it, it also boils down to the wheelbase of the vehicle.

So if it's exceeding 135 inches, then it's not properly distributed.

And in some instances, you could see that in a 12 passenger van or even less.

Adventist Risk Management - Part 5: Emergency Planning

Heavenly Father, thank you for waking us up this morning.

Even the rain, Lord, you know, sometimes we may not be that happy for it, but it is definitely a reminder that, you know, were it not for the rain, we wouldn't enjoy the sunshine so much.

So I pray that you be with this class, help us to engage and learn something from it and go back and be well prepared for any emergencies that may arise.

I ask these things in your most holy and precious name.

I think no introduction is needed because I've introduced myself to you all before, but thank you for coming back.

So today's class is on emergency planning.

There are a number of different elements that go into planning for emergencies.

Just a heads up, when it comes to emergency planning, there are a number of different resources out there.

On our website, we actually have emergency planning documents to make sure that you're geared up and prepared and sit down with your board and say, hey, these are things that we're prepared for and this is what we're going to do.

Another valuable resource is through FEMA.

So FEMA actually also has emergency planning documents on their website as well.

So they will have them specifically for church organizations.

So I would highly recommend checking those out if you're interested in actually going forth and doing emergency planning at your church.

They can be very stressful, can be very confusing, and a lot of times they demand an immediate response.

In the absence of pre-planning, it's kind of hard to give that immediate response when you're not really sure what to do.

Unfortunately, due to fear and natural body responses, we can even end up making bad decisions.

Our bodies perform poorly under high stress situations.

Earlier this week, I discussed how I did active shooter training with Alice.

And in that class I actually learned that, I also learned in that Alice training that in a high stakes situation, whether it's a fire or active shooter, actually doors such as these where you have to turn the doorknob.

If you're high stress, your motor skills can fail you so easily that it becomes difficult to do a simple task as far as twist and push open.

A lot of organizations and a lot of schools, as a matter of fact, are moving towards kind of that either a crash bar or something where it's more like a handle versus a doorknob that requires a little bit finer motor skills.

So Something as simple as that can make it or break it in terms of an emergency situation.

Doorknobs such as those, especially in a fire, they can get hot.

I mean, that's an indication of where the fire is.

So these are just some things to keep in mind.

So again, like I said, starting off this class, want to be a little bit more interactive, a little more engaging.

And the first thing that I would actually like to ask the class is What emergency are we going to plan for today?

So alright, well we're planning for active shooter.

Some things to keep in mind when you're planning for active shooter is who's going to be involved?

How are we going to go about planning this?

First and foremost, it's important to have somebody that has gone through some level of training, whether it's somebody who's gone through an ALICE training or who's in law enforcement.

If you're using law enforcement, a lot of times they're very accommodating.

They'll come to your church, they say, hey, these are the things that we can practice.

I don't know if they'll have as much time to sit with whether it's your congregation or your church board and go through the actual actions of planning for active shooter, but they'll give you the gist of things that you can do in preparation for active shooter drill.

So first and foremost, the things that we need to do is to assess.

Assess what are the risks, where are we, you know, are we in a church, are we in a school, Are we in the community service center that's across the street from our church?

If it's across the street from our church, in the event of an active shooter, if we have people in the community service center, the active shooter is in between the 2 locations, how do we communicate the 2?

Maybe the people in the church community service center know that, hey, there's a shooter outside, but the people in the church don't.

How are we going to go about communicating those things?

We're planning for active shooter, but where are we?

Are we at a church, or we're at a school?

Let's say we're in a Sabbath school room.

This is probably 1 of the better examples.

So at this point, we need to write up a plan.

When you go through active shooter training, there's levels to it.

First and foremost, they start off by giving you the traditional model, which is to find a place to hide.

It's not something that I would recommend as a first resort.

There are other options as far as barricading.

So as an example, this door, at least it seems so, has no way of locking itself.

So theoretically, let's just say that that door is unlocked.

You have an active shooter in the hallway.

Knowing what you know, first things first, what would be something that you would attempt to do?

Now, remember though, this door, and I'm not saying that that's not a bad idea, because that is a deterrent in and of itself.

So it definitely helps better if the door swings inside the classroom, because then you can definitely barricade it.

So There are things that you could do to still prevent this door from being open.

Wrapping your belt or duct tape or something around this makes it more difficult to open.

Another thing that you could do in this particular room, I don't know how much yanking and pulling it would require, but if you had a cord, extension cord or something like that, oh there's 1 there, You put 1 end of the extension cord, if you have enough time, underneath the door and you pull it.

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Adventist Risk Management - Part 2: Pathfinder and Camp Safety

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